484 



METHODISTS. 



in donations and loans, on conditions yet to be 

 complied with, to 194 churches, of $65,650 ; 

 and applications were on file from ninety-one 

 churches for grants and loans to the amount of 

 $32,625. The plan of inviting special contribu- 

 tions of $250 each for frontier churches had 

 been of great service. Eighty-four such con- 

 tributions had been received, providing an ag- 

 gregate amount of $21,000. 



Freedmerfs Aid Society. The annual meet- 

 ing of the Freed men's Aid Society was held 

 in Cincinnati, Ohio, December 29. Mr. Amos 

 Shinkel, first vice-president, presided. The 

 treasurer reported that his total receipts for 

 the year ending July 1, 1884, had been $137,- 

 453. This showed an apparent decrease from 

 the previous year of $16,800; but that arose 

 from the appearance in the last year's report 

 of the amount of a legacy for endowments, 

 which had swelled the receipts considerably 

 beyond the annual average. The returns of 

 the regular collections exhibited an increase of 

 $15,299. The expenditures for the year had 

 been $147,652, of which $97,700 had been ap- 

 plied to the maintenance of the teachers and 

 the schools and to current expenses, and $49,- 

 952 was for real estate and buildings. 



Twenty - one institutions of learning were 

 maintained among the freedmen, and returned 

 106 teachers and 3,623 students. Aid had also 

 been extended to educational work among the 

 white population of the South, so far as it 

 could be done without interfering with the 

 work among the freedmen ; and there were 

 already eighteen institutions of this class, as- 

 sisted by the society, which returned eighty-six 

 teachers and more than 2,000 students. 



Woman's Home Missionary Society. The 

 annual meeting of the Woman's Home Mis- 

 sionary Society was held at Cleveland, Ohio, 

 October 28 to 31. Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes 

 presided. The receipts for the year had been 

 nearly $17,000, and a balance of $5,953 was 

 returned as being in the treasury. Appropria- 

 tions were made for the ensuing year to the 

 amount of $35,000. The objects of the society 

 include the making provision for needy families 

 and frontier pastors by putting them under 

 the care of some Sunday-school or prosperous 

 church, and the promotion of training in house- 

 keeping and the practical industries by the es- 

 tablishment of "model homes," of which those 

 at Little Rock. Ark., Holly Springs, Miss., At- 

 lanta, Ga., Orangeburg, S. C., and Savannah, 

 Ga., were reported as in successful operation. 



General Missionary Committee. The Gen- 

 eral Missionary Committee of the Methodist 

 Episcopal Church met in the city of New 

 York, November 6. Bishop Bowman pre- 

 sided. The treasurer of the Missionary So- 

 ciety reported that his receipts for the year 

 had ^been $731,126, or $20,344 less than the 

 receipts for the previous year, and his expendi- 

 tures $775,224. The decrease in receipts had 

 been wholly in the item of legacies, while the 

 collections in the churches had been augmented. 



The treasury was in debt on the first day of No- 

 vember, 1884, $58,206. Provisions were made 

 for the extension of the missionary work in 

 Africa, under the supervision of Missionary- 

 Bishop Taylor, and for the establishment of a 

 new mission in Corea. A gift was offered by 

 Mr. J. F. Goucher, of Baltimore, of $5,000, 

 and accepted by the committee, provided the 

 whole amount of $12,000 was obtained for that 

 purpose, "for the erection of a main building, 

 containing chapel, lecture-rooms, library, mu- 

 seum, etc., for the Anglo-Japanese University 

 of Tokio and Arroyama." 



Appropriations for the support of the mis- 

 sions during the ensuing year were as follow : 



I. FOREIGN MISSIONS : 



Africa $4,000 



South America 20 500 



China 69,808 



Germany and Switzerland , 24,600 



Scandinavia 46.888 



India 67^161 



Bulgaria and Turkey 12,876 



Italy 31,378 



Mexico 84,782 



Japan 84,986 



Corea 8,100 



Total $854,979 



CONDITIONAL APPROPRIATION for Tokio Uni- 

 versity, conditioned on donations $12,000 



II. MISSIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, not in annual 



conferences, to be administered as foreig-n 

 missions (in Arizona, New Mexico. Utah, 

 "West Nebraska, Dakota, Montana, Nevada, 

 the Black Hills, Indian Territory, etc.) $82,100 



III. DOMESTIC MISSIONS : 



Welsh $200 



Scandinavian 28,700 



German 43,500 



French 1,000 



Portuguese 500 



Chinese 11,900 



American Indian 5,SOO 



English-speaking 167,600 



IV. MISCELLANEOUS APPROPRIATIONS : . . 89,000 



For the liquidation of the debt 64,721 



Total appropriations $850,000 



Methodist Centennial Conference. A confer- 

 ence in commemoration of the centenary of 

 the organization of American Methodism by the 

 meeting of the first General Conference of the 

 Methodist Episcopal Church, commonly called 

 the "Christmas Conference,'' Dec. 25, 1784, 

 was held in Baltimore, Md., beginning Decem- 

 ber 10th. Duly appointed delegates attended 

 from the Methodist Episcopal Church ; the 

 Methodist Episcopal Church, South ; the Afri- 

 can Methodist Episcopal Church ; the African 

 Methodist Episcopal Zion Church ; the Canada 

 Methodist Church; the Primitive Methodist 

 Church ; and the Independent Methodist 

 Churches. Fraternal delegates were received 

 from the Methodist Protestant and Bible 

 Christian Churches. A preliminary meeting, 

 for the exchange of greetings, was held on the 

 evening of December 9th, in the First M. E. 

 Church, the society of which was regarded as 

 the legitimate successor of that of the Lovely 

 Lane Meeting-House, in which the Christmas 

 Conference was held. The following compar- 

 ative view of the strength of the Methodist 





